


In Our Box

by VicenteValtieri



Series: A Thousand Lives Unlived [10]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Childbirth, Isolation, M/M, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 12:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14894459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VicenteValtieri/pseuds/VicenteValtieri
Summary: It was never meant to end this way. Trapped, helpless, hopeless, buried alive. No one knew he was still online, except Megatron, who came to torment him with Cybertron's progress... and what he was inflicting on his Autobots.





	In Our Box

Optimus never imagined it would end like this. Mute, alone in the dark, in an enclosed box far beneath the surface of the planet. Alone. Helpless, while his mechs believed he was dead and toiled under Megatron. The Tyrant had promised Optimus that he would never see the sun again. All he could do was slowly go mad from grief and isolation in the dark. 

There was a drone who delivered energon cubes every morning and evening. Optimus almost wished it would stop. Megatron wanted him to live for a long time down here… and that was something he couldn’t stomach. 

It was cold and he felt his dentea chatter. No matter how long he stayed, he never got used to the cold. There was only the thinnest blanket here to keep him warm and no berth whatsoever. It was a shock that he hadn’t become sick yet. 

The door creaked open and the once-proud leader of the Autobots lifted his helm, optics shining with defiance as Megatron filled the cell. “I thought you might like to help me celebrate.” He smirked at the Prime. “It’s my bonding day, after all.” He was carrying a plate with an oil cake iced and covered in silver shavings. Optimus’s favorite. 

The Prime let his optics say what his lipplates no longer could. 

“Oh, Prime, don’t be like that. I’m feeling generous.” The tyrant had red and gold paint transfers on his frame. “Here. Celebrate with me, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

Optimus pulled back his lipplates.

“So inhospitable! And I had a gift for you too. I suppose you must not want it.” Megatron dangled a thick, self-heating blanket in front of the Prime. 

Optimus had been effectively buried alive. His cell was barely large enough to pace in. It was frozen, damp, and smelled funny. There were no proper facilities to bathe or even to get rid of waste. In short, there was no lower he could go. Even starvation couldn’t make his circumstances worse. In the face of that, the Prime silently glared at Megatron and didn’t even flinch towards the comforting object.

“It’s a shame. You know, my bonded bride called out for you just a little bit ago. A reflex, you might call it. He was asking you to save him.”

Optimus lunged suddenly, throwing himself at Megatron. The depraved mech made a loud, angry noise and threw the weakened Prime back. His gifts scattered as the warlord beat Optimus back and down. “That was foolish.” He snarled in Optimus’s faceplates.

The Prime took the beating with resistance, but he was weak. Perhaps he had always been weak. In the end, Megatron left him alone, taking the blanket away with him. It was a hollow, shallow victory for the Prime. 

 

It was almost impossible to track the time. His internal chronometer was glitching and only the hours function worked properly. To work with this, Optimus had created a system. Everytime he checked his chrono, he ignored the date and the day counter as well as anything to do with Cybertronian time. Focusing on the hours, he calculated when a klickcycle had passed. He had marked out ten marks on the reinforced wall of the cell and used a pebble to indicate which klickcycle it was. Then, when ten had passed, he went to recharge. His systems were set to wake him after ten klickcycles: He would have set them for more, but they had refused. Too much recharge did as much harm as too little. That was a full cycle and he made a mark on his wall when one had passed. It was something to do.

He had been here for two hundred and fifty-three klickcycles. No one had come for him. He hadn’t expected them to either. Megatron could be thorough when he wanted to be.

His processor was on the red and gold paint on Megatron’s. A bonded bride. None of the Decepticons wore red and gold. The combination had been a mark of functionism. Even Knock Out’s vanity didn’t allow for that color combination. In fact, the only mech he could think of who even got close to that combination was Starscream, and his cockpit was amber. Optimus had once heard a rumor that the Seeker had staked some unfortunate who dared point out that his colors trespassed close to the line. Optimus couldn’t imagine that. Killing a mech for making an observation: Even an offensive observation. Perhaps he had been trying to help. It wouldn’t have hurt for the Seeker to assign some particularly humiliating punishment instead.

His processor fell on only one mech: Hot Rod. Hot Rod wore red and gold, was young and beautiful, and would have been a spirited catch. He was exactly the kind of mech Megatron would love to break just to see him shatter. Optimus sent all of his prayers to the young, suffering mech, and cursed himself for not being able to help him. 

 

Sometimes, the walls echoed with strange sounds. Optimus’s over-active processor turned them into the cries of fallen comrades. “I’m sorry.” He told the walls. “I never wanted it to end this way. I never meant for it to end this way.”

The walls didn’t care. They continued to whisper and creak and scrape at his processor until he finally forced himself into recharge. Another cycle.

 

Megatron had brought hot water. In a bucket, with a cleaning rag. Optimus could smell the solvent in it.

It had to be a trap. 

The tyrant had simply said that he was in a good mood. Reconstruction was going well. Soon, Tarn would be a proper city again. He had also made a few cutting remarks about Ironhide. How he did more work than any other Autobot slave “And all it took were some calculated threats about sending that light blue femme to the mines to replace one of my drones. Isn’t it wonderful how Autobots pull together when one of them is at risk?”

Optimus had glared at him in silence. His dislike for Megatron had only grown in the dark and festered into true hatred. It had been a foreign feeling at first, something that crept into his spark and made him feel things he didn’t understand. Then, it had become familiar, even comfortable. 

He wanted to dip his servo into the bucket and wash. It would be a blessing to be clean again. But it had to be a trap. He couldn’t believe Megatron would do something kind out of the goodness of his spark.

By the time he had tortured himself enough to try the bucket, it was lukewarm at best. There had been nothing wrong with it. Just another game the warlord was playing.

 

The only light in his cell was that he could make himself. Sometimes, he sat with his headlights on for no other reason than that he wanted to see the light. Sometimes, he opened his chestplate to let the Matrix glow. He never did that for very often or long. It was too cold. According to his marks on the wall, it was well into winter. On other planets, that wouldn’t be a problem so far underground. But Cybertron wasn’t another planet and it wasn’t insulated the same way. Winter, on Cybertron, was a cyclical change in the massive mech that they all lived on and inside. Even here, buried away from the sun and the wind, it was freezing.

If he had been topside, there would be warmed drinks and hot oil baths, heated homes and even fires when it was time for some celebration. But here there was nothing but the memory and the echoing creaks of the world around him. 

 

Something was scraping at the walls. Optimus could hear it. Something was chipping away at the concrete. Something was trying to dig through. The Prime rolled with care to his knees, listening. A silent plea in his spark, he went to the walls, pressing his audials to each in turn until he found it. A brick near the floor of the cell. Someone was scraping and scratching at it. Someone was moving it. 

He wasn’t alone. Adding his own blunt fingertips to the work, he pressed and wiggled, pushing against the brick, trying to help the person on the other side. The someone trying to reach him.

Then, the brick shot out of the wall and his servo rushed forward into open space, impacting something on the far side. There was a cry of pain in a familiar voice. A screeching, grating, annoying, spark-breakingly beautiful voice. “Ow!” Starscream cussed him out in three different dialects, presumably as he clutched whatever piece of himself Optimus had hit. 

Optimus would have apologized if he could, but he was forced into silence as he pushed his arm further through the hole. He could only make it up to the elbow, but it was enough. His digits grazed a warm shoulder and squeezed in apology.

“Who is this? Who’s there?” Starscream groped along his arm like a blind mech. Optimus turned on his headlights to help him, but it didn’t change anything in spite of the fact that now he could see glimpses of Starscream’s armor through the whole. “I- I can’t see. You have to talk to me. Please, please talk to me.” The Seeker was clutching his arm with one hand now, the other trying to reach through to the other side. 

Optimus widened his EM field and squeezed the Seeker’s shoulder again. “I’m here.” He tried to project with his field. “I’m here.”

“Please. Please say something. I can’t – you have to be real. Please be real.”

Optimus tried to pull back his arm, but Starscream clutched with his claws. “No! Please! You can’t leave me like this!”

Optimus squeezed the Seeker’s servo reassuringly. Slowly, Starscream calmed. “You can’t speak, can you?”

Optimus pointed one finger and began tapping on Starscream’s shoulder plating. Morse code. He prayed Starscream knew it.

“…Optimus Prime?” Starscream breathed. “What are you doing down here? I thought for sure Megatron would have killed you.”

Optimus tapped gently. It was a relief. It was such a relief. Nothing could express how he felt as he told Starscream in a language of dots and dashes, exactly what had been happening to him all this time. He skimped on the details, but the general overview was hard enough, especially since Starscream was living through it himself.

Starscream was holding his servo away from his shoulder. “Enough. It’s okay. I understand.” Starscream held his servo to himself. “Megatron rubs Rodimus in my faceplates too. And how much better off Cybertron is with me gone, of course.” 

Optimus squeezed the Seeker’s servos and listened. 

 

 

They spent ten vorns that way. Optimus’s wall was covered in his dashes and marks and Starscream had helped him with his calculations. Even blinded, the Seeker was a formidable mathmetician. The plating on Starscream’s shoulder was always polished where Optimus tapped on it to speak. Sometimes, he didn’t even need to do that. Sometimes, he just needed to squeeze the Seeker gently and Starscream understood. Sometimes, they fell into recharge pressed up against the wall, touching each other. 

The screams of his Autobots were quieter now. 

 

Megatron made a final visit. “I’m afraid I have to bid you adieu, Optimus, as those fleshlings you love so much say it.” The warlord was practically glowing with pride. Rodimus had given him three sparklings in the vorns in between their bonding and now. “Tarn is completed and High Command is moving. But don’t worry. The drones will take care of you just fine. But I will not be visiting again, I’m afraid. Simply too long a commute.”

Optimus stared at him, outwardly keeping his faceplates impassive. Inwardly, he couldn’t believe his audials. Megatron was never going to visit him again. He and Starscream could demolish the wall that separated them. They would be able to see each other – or… he would be able to see Starscream – in his entirety. Maybe they could find a way to repair each other’s lost functions. If they could put their processors together, they might find a way to escape.

“I brought a parting gift.” Megatron dropped a self-heating blanket over the Prime. “Sirehood is making me soft.”

Optimus knew Megatron rubbed his new family in Starscream’s faceplates. The Seeker was barren and they had never had the sparkling both of them had wanted so much. Hearing this hurt Starscream on a deeper level than even the claustrophobic quarters. Optimus ached for his former protégé, but was certain he was at least fueled and safe. That had to be enough. For now. Megatron wouldn’t abuse the Carrier of his sparklings. Surely he wouldn’t. 

 

Optimus couldn’t wait for the tyrant to leave. He was vibrating in his excitement. The new warmth of the blanket was an afterthought. When Starscream displaced their brick, he knew it was finally time even before the Seeker began speaking. “He’s gone! And he’s not coming back!” 

Optimus immediately began levering more bricks out of the wall, expanding the hole they had made.

“Careful.” Starscream cautioned him. “If it turns out to be a load-bearing wall, it could cause a cave in.” The Seeker began helping with his claws, scratching out the concrete. “Primus knows, we wouldn’t want that. Make it just large enough to get through.”

Optimus nodded, caressed the Seeker’s arm, and continued to work.

They forewent recharge, pulling open bricks and pushing them out of place. Starscream cursed three times as he broke his claws on the concrete and they didn’t stop. Not until Optimus shone his headlights through the hole and saw Starscream in his entirety.

The Seeker was filthy from helm to pede, but so was Optimus. His optics were darkened, staring sockets. The whole optic had been removed. Nothing he could do there. He was scratched and scraped and bleeding from the broken claws on his servos, but he was alive, he was real.

Optimus pulled him through the hole so fast that Starscream scraped his wing. Neither of them cared. After ten vorns separated, but together, they couldn’t get enough of the physical contact, the warmth, of the other.

Optimus wrapped Starscream up in the new blanket and they mapped each other’s frames. Starscream traced the remains of the wound where Megatron had removed Optimus’s vox box. “There’s nothing here. The whole thing is gone. I’m sorry, Optimus.”

Optimus nodded and touched Starscream’s faceplates below where his optics used to be. He could have put his digits into each one and touched the Seeker’s skull. Of course, he didn’t. 

“It’s okay. I mean, there’s nothing to see here, is there? Except light. There is… Optimus, there is light, right? There’s at least that.” Starscream had never seen this cell. His optics had been torn from him before he had been thrust in here. He didn’t know. 

Optimus gently caressed one shoulder, telling a kind lie instead of a painful truth. And it was, in its own way, truth. There was light with a flick of his headlamps. It was enough. 

“Thank Primus. I can stand it being enclosed, so long as there’s light.” Starscream smiled gently. His expressions were varied and in this high-stress state he fluctuated between them with ease. From worry to bliss in seconds.

Optimus didn’t want to psychoanalyze the Seeker. He was here, with him, it was enough.

 

Living out of the sun, living without metals, drinking only refined energon with no supplements… These all took a toll on the Cybertronian physique. It wasn’t lethal, simply made it difficult for the frame to maintain itself. That meant that less and less metals were wasted making transfluid, say. On top of that, Starscream had been proclaimed barren by every doctor who had ever taken so much as a glance at him. 

Why did this always happen? Optimus thought of taking up gambling – he would make a fortune betting on long odds.

“I can’t believe it.” Starscream was still tracing their daughter’s tiny face with his nimble digits. “It’s not possible. It can’t be possible.”

With one servo gently squeezing the Seeker’s wrist, Optimus held out Starscream’s morning ration. 

Starscream took the cube and drank it without really tasting it. “…But how? Why now, why here? I mean…”

Optimus kissed his forehead.

“Optimus… our child can’t grow up in this cell. She’d never make it.” Starscream’s wings flicked. “She’s a Seeker. She needs to fly.”

The Prime patted Starscream’s shoulder and went back to examining the walls around the doors. By then, they had been working their way through various plans to escape. Some of the walls had been chipped at to reveal the planet behind them. Their only exit seemed to be the wall that contained the door, but so far they hadn’t been able to make a mark on them.

The Seekerlet chirped and began fussing. “Someone’s hungry.” His mate smiled down at their tiny daughter. She was the size of one of Starscream’s servos: Too small. Far too small. But living and strong.

While their daughter ate, Optimus worked on a way out. The door wouldn’t budge, the wall was reinforced. It had to be through the lock or through the hinges. That was all that remained. 

And the Prime worked. And Starscream worked. And their daughter – a beautiful little femme that Starscream insisted on calling Windblade – she grew. In small increments, she grew.

Optimus compulsively checked the edges of Starscream’s plating and his denteas for the signs of frame cannibalization. So far, so good, but it was a decacycle in and they had at least fifty to go before she could take her own energon. And that would bring a whole slew of other problems.

 

Megatron came while the parents were both recharging. The sound of one of their doors creaking open snapped Starscream and Optimus awake with a jolt. Windblade began crying as she sensed the shift in her Carrier’s mood and Starscream dove for cover behind Optimus.

“Well… Isn’t this a surprise.” Megatron didn’t look as smug as he had before. Something had changed in his attitude. 

Optimus squeezed Starscream’s elbow and began tapping.

“Go away.” Starscream translated. “I won’t let you hurt them.” His voice broke.

“On the contrary. I’m not here to hurt either of you. I’m here to save the daughter you’re so foolishly endangering.” Megatron replied. “I’m offering you a choice: Hand her over. I’ll raise her among my own children. She’ll be loved, cared for, and see the sun. Or, keep her, and eventually, she’ll die – probably after you do, of starvation and frame cannibalization. She might die of old age. She might get sick. She might simply kill herself. It doesn’t matter. She will be alone and terrified, and it will be your fault.”

“How do I know you won’t abuse her?” Starscream snapped. “I don’t trust you with her! If she dies here, at least she’d die loved.” 

Sometimes, Starscream was really, really unreasonable.

Megatron pretended to check his chrono. “I don’t have much time for this. It’s a one-time offer. When I leave, I will never see you again.”

Optimus tapped on Starscream’s elbow.

“I can’t believe you just said that!” Starscream screeched at him. “Don’t even think of that!”

Optimus turned, facing his mate and daughter. The wall behind him was untouched, in spite of all his efforts to break through. Almost fifteen vorns spent trying… and no way out. 

That wasn’t a future. 

Starscream saw his intention in his optics and backed up and away post-haste. “Don’t you dare-!” He screeched as Optimus cornered and grabbed his mate. The Convoy tried several different grips, occasionally tapping out messages on various parts of Starscream – trying to make him see reason. 

Starscream’s coding would never let him harm his daughter, not even when he had her clutched in a death grip. Optimus slipped his digits into the Seeker’s grips and – with regret and apologies crowding in his processor – he broke Starscream’s thumbs.

The Seeker squalled at the top of his voice as Windblade slid out from his servos. “Optimus, no!” He threw himself onto the Prime’s back, eight claws digging straight through his plating, trying to hold him back. “You don’t know him like I do! He’s incapable- STOP!”

Optimus reached behind himself with one servo, containing the struggling Seeker. With the other, he barely gathered the strength of will to lay Windblade into Megatron’s arm, where a soft, clean, white blanket waited. It was only when he saw her against it, that he realized how dirty and dull her plating was. Starscream had obsessed over her. He had kept her from touching the ground, the walls… But there was nothing they could do about themselves.

Megatron was right. Windblade would die here.

Megatron had the sense to leave without saying anything. The door closed with an air of finality and Starscream threw himself against it as soon as Optimus let him go. In pain and desperation, Starscream scratched at the door… and left more marks on it than Optimus had ever. 

When the Seeker slumped to the ground – sobbing, Optimus dared set a servo on Starscream’s shoulder. 

He almost lost it. 

By the time Optimus had fended off the worst of Starscream’s assault, the Seeker was physically exhausted and running so low that he couldn’t take his evening fuel by himself. At the risk of another beating, Optimus propped him up and helped him drink it. After the fuel was in his tanks, Starscream rolled over and went to recharge.

 

In the morning, Optimus hesitantly squeezed a greeting into Starscream’s shoulder.

Nothing. Not even a twitch. Starscream’s optical sockets never gave anything away. Optimus couldn’t tell if the Seeker was in recharge or just ignoring him.

He left him alone, hoping he would come around eventually. He couldn’t stay like that forever. Eventually, he would speak again. Eventually, he would be all right. Optimus made him take his fuel and otherwise left him alone. Space was key. He would go through the five stages and be as fine as they could be. He would see that Windblade would have died. He would see reason.

 

By the tenth cycle, Optimus was furious that Starscream wouldn’t respond to him. He had set the Seeker’s thumbs as best he could, but healing was slow without metals or medics. The Prime shook the Seeker, trying to wake him up. He paced and pummeled the walls. He would have shouted, but… no voice.

By the thirteenth cycle, Optimus was reduced to begging. Megatron himself had never seen the Prime grovel, but Starscream… He tapped out long-winded essays and pleas into Starscream’s plating. Nothing. No change. There was no evidence the Seeker was even listening. 

After begging didn’t work, Optimus didn’t know what to do. For two whole cycles he just held Starscream and sat in a corner. 

Then, he formed a routine. Every morning, he greeted Starscream, made him fuel, and laid him down with the blanket over him. He would work away at the wall with whatever he had – a nail, a brick – and it wouldn’t budge. Occasionally, he pulled out a chunk of hardened cement. That was a good day. In the evening, he made Starscream fuel again. Then, he tapped out another apology into his shoulder or thigh. In it, he would mention how much he missed the Seeker… and their daughter. He would say something about escape progress, or lack thereof. He always ended the apology with ‘I love you.’ Then, he would lay down beside the unresponsive mech and recharge. It wasn’t a good life, but it was better than wallowing. It was better than breaking down.

Eventually, the apology became more and more simple. At the end, it was just ‘I love you.’

 

Starscream woke up… Perhaps suddenly isn’t the word. Perhaps he woke up because he simply couldn’t sleep anymore. But he did wake up. It was almost three vorns since he had gone to sleep.

Perhaps it was because Optimus had felt like talking to him the previous day and had asked if he could ever be forgiven or if Starscream hated him the same way he hated Megatron.

He stared reproachfully at Optimus’s back as the Convoy worked. “I’m not going to forgive you.”

Optimus turned suddenly, shocked.

“But I don’t hate you.” Starscream’s lipplates trembled. “I don’t hate you.”

Optimus went to him, digits tapping gently on one hip.

“No.” Starscream slid back against the wall. “I don’t want to refuel. I’m not tired, or hungry. Just empty.” He laid a servo over his cockpit between his spark and gestation tank. “Just empty.”

Optimus laid their helms together and held Starscream that way for the rest of the cycle.

 

In the end, it was a dull, almost quiet sound. Optimus pushed a little harder on a brick he had been working on with Starscream for almost three decacycles. It slid out and landed in the hallway beyond. 

Starscream’s burst of sudden, relieved laughter at the sound couldn’t match with Optimus’s. 

One brick became two, two three, and three four. There was a hole barely large enough for Starscream’s wings by the time they had finished and they stepped out. Starscream almost fell over as a crushing weight lifted from his wings. “…Optimus, which way is out? I have to fly. I have to fly now.”

The Prime gripped Starscream’s servo. The corridor only had one direction. There were two doors in the corridor and a small one for drones to get in and out. Together, they raced into an elevator and Optimus crossed his digits that it would work. He would kill to see the sun again, feel rust grass beneath his pedes.

Nothing could have kept Starscream from the sky when they finally reached the open air. They had had to run through Iacon’s palace, but finally… finally they were here. It was raining. 

Optimus raised his faceplates to the droplets and felt twenty-five vorns of filth rolling down his plating and into the grass. There was a whistling through the air and suddenly he was flying. Starscream’s systems strained as he lifted his mate into the air and whirled him around. It was a short flight and the Seeker collapsed into his arms, but it was a beautiful thing to feel the rush of clean air and smell the ozone. 

Optimus carried Starscream back into the Palace to get out of the rain, but not before they had raced and played through the gardens, rejoicing in limbs that had waited too long to be free. Tomorrow, they would plan and scheme and find a way to get their daughter back, to free the Autobots, to see Megatron crushed underpede. 

Today they might as well have been sparklings.


End file.
